The Secret Adventurer's Club Second Adventure (part 10)

Finny scrambled backwards to her feet with the gun pointing all the while at the bear in case it suddenly sprang up again. She backed away two or three metres before recognition of a world that was more than just her and the bear began to return. She stopped and her heart began to slow as normal sound came back and she could feel the throbbing stinging in her hands again.

Then the boys were there. Onetooth and Worms. Touching her, clapping her on the back, congratulation her…

Finny threw up.

She dropped to her knees, the gun carelessly dumped on the ground so that she could lean forwards and support herself on her hands. Finny continued to vomit until all that was left was painful dry retching. Onetooth and Worms looked at each other. Worms shrugged. They didn’t get it.

Finally Finny climbed to her feet and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, leaving a bloody smear across her face. She looked at her hand, seeing the blood and brain matter for the first time and retched again.

“You okay Finn?”

Finny took a deep breath and nodded.

“Yeah. Just… You know.”

Onetooth didn’t know but wanted to comfort Finny.

“Uhuh. You gonna be alright?”

A new voice joined the conversation.

“Of course she is.”

Finny, Onetooth and Worms spun around. A man was standing about five metres away. Tall, skinny, bald and wearing dirty, patched clothing. Jeans, T-shirt, boots, all in shades of black. Crossed bullet belts hung from his shoulders, mainly empty of bullets. The first striking thing about him, though ,were the tattoos that covered his bare arms, his face and even climbed up past his ears towards his shaved head. The second striking thing was the big semi-automatic pistol he was pointing in their general direction. He walked towards them slowly.

“First time you kill something when it’s either you or him,” He waved the gun at the bear corpse. “Or old bruin there. First time always get ya like that.”

The three orphans started to back away from the approaching man. Finny’s foot touched the gun. She glanced at the man, locking eyes. The casually held pistol was suddenly not casually held at all and pointing right at her.

“Oh no little girl. That would be a very bad idea you’re having there.” The man nodded towards something behind the little group.

Finny continued to stare at him, hoping for the gun to waiver so she could…

“Finn!”

The shout was urgent but Finny wasn’t sure whether it came from the throat of Onetooth or Worms. Not that it mattered. Her head turned automatically at the distress it held and she saw what the man had nodded towards and what had caused the high pitched warning.

Another black clad figure, this one a woman with two short stripes of green hair on either side of her own otherwise bald head. But she sported just as many tattoos as the man. The woman was emerging from around the corner of one of the buildings. She had Casper held tight to her body with her left arm while the right held a long, broad-bladed knife to his throat. Casper looked terrified. The blood drained from Finny’s face. She turned back to the man who was now only a couple of metres away from her, smiling a rotten toothed smile.

“Now why don’t you be a little sweetheart and just kick that cannon of yours over to me? Gently now.”

Finny felt Onetooth and Worms huddle around her. For what? Finny thought. Protection? The word mocked her. Desperately fighting back the tears that threatened to come any moment, Finny did the only thing left she could do to protect them all from immediate and bloody death. Just as instructed, she gently kicked the pistol away from her and towards the leering tattooed man.